Another retro-SF city, full of classic European elements a la Jules Verne. This world has been so successful in Europe as to elicit a life-size roving exhibition recreating it, with even metro stations in Paris and Brussels designed after it. A long awaited title in the obscure and mysterious Cities of the Fantastic series. In full-colour throughout.
Contributions by Carl Abbott, Jacob Babb, Marleen S. Barr, Michael Fuchs, John Glover, Stephen Joyce, Sarah Lahm, James McAdams, Cynthia J. Miller, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Chris Pak, María Isabel Pérez Ramos, Stefan Rabitsch, J. Jesse Ramírez, A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Andrew Wasserman, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, and Robert Yeates Metropolis, Gotham City, Mega-City One, Panem’s Capitol, the Sprawl, Caprica City—American (and Americanized) urban environments have always been a part of the fantastic imagination. Fantastic Cities: American Urban Spaces in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror focuses on the American city as a fantastic geography constrained neither by media nor rigid genre boundaries. Fantastic Cities builds on a mix of theoretical and methodological tools that are drawn from criticism of the fantastic, media studies, cultural studies, American studies, and urban studies. Contributors explore cultural media across many platforms such as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, the Arkham Asylum video games, the 1935 movie serial The Phantom Empire, Kim Stanley Robinson’s fiction, Colson Whitehead’s novel Zone One, the vampire films Only Lovers Left Alive and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Water Knife, some of Kenny Scharf’s videos, and Samuel Delany’s classic Dhalgren. Together, the contributions in Fantastic Cities demonstrate that the fantastic is able to “real-ize” that which is normally confined to the abstract, metaphorical, and/or subjective. Consequently, both utopian aspirations for and dystopian anxieties about the American city become literalized in the fantastic city.
In this eagerly awaited follow-up to the international bestseller Fantastic Cities, artist Steve McDonald uses his unique large-format approach working from actual photographs to create beautifully detailed line drawings of amazing buildings and other structures from around the world. The globe-trotting selection includes buildings from six continents—including Prague's Astronomical Clock, Russia's St. Basil's Cathedral, a Florentine bridge, a Romanian castle, an Indian palace, and many dozens more—alongside fun-to-color details from iconic structures such as the Eiffel Tower, London's Tower Bridge, and the Chrysler Building. The crisp white pages are conducive to a range of applications, and a middle margin keeps all the artwork fully colorable. A dozen imaginative architectural mandala illustrations round out this gorgeous adult coloring book.
Eugen Robick thought he had designed the perfect city, efficiently divided between the consummately aesthetic and the irrational. But then a small but mysterious grid of beams invades and exponentially expands into an indestructible city-engulfing lattice, allowing a bridge between the city's two halves. As well-laid plans are thrown into disarray, readers will join in Robick's search to learn the cube's secret and the errors of his own ways. Illustrated in b/w throughout. 'Marvel at one of Europe's master draughtsmen' - Amazon.com
Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin crafts her most incredible novel yet, a "glorious" story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City. In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels. And they're not the only ones. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She's got six. For more from N. K. Jemisin, check out: The Inheritance Trilogy The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms The Broken Kingdoms The Kingdom of Gods The Inheritance Trilogy (omnibus edition) Shades in Shadow: An Inheritance Triptych (e-only short fiction) The Awakened Kingdom (e-only novella) Dreamblood Duology The Killing Moon The Shadowed Sun The Dreamblood Duology (omnibus) The Broken Earth The Fifth Season The Obelisk Gate The Stone Sky How Long 'til Black Future Month? (short story collection) "A glorious fantasy." —Neil Gaiman
Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.
Italo Calvino's beloved, intricately crafted novel about an Emperor's travels—a brilliant journey across far-off places and distant memory. “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo—Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear.
"Samaris is the first volume of the chronicles of The Obscure Cities, published as a graphic novel in 1983 in French and published for the first time in English in 1987 as The Great Walls of Samaris. This edition, marking the 30th anniversary of the original English language publication, features an expanded main story, an all-new creator-approved translation, and new coloring. The book also contains the never before published-in-English "THE MYSTERIES OF PAHRY," a THE OBSCURE CITIES story, originally published in four parts, three in the French comics magazine, A Suivre, from 1987 through 1989, and in the December 1994 issue of Macadam-plus"--Provided by publisher
Fantastic Coloring features 70 of the best illustrations inspired by the internationally bestselling adult coloring book series that has sold over 500,000 copies. This distinctive collection captures the beauty of the world around us with black-and-white coloring designs by artist Steve McDonald. Including a dozen never-before-seen artwork, and castles, jungles, cityscapes, butterflies, and more, each unique design is in his signature photo-to-illustration style. With detailed illustrations of travel destinations, natural wonders, and everyday scenes, the popular Fantastic series, which includes fan favorites like Fantastic Cities, has delighted and inspired hundreds of thousands of artists and coloring enthusiasts to create beautiful works of art. * In a handy 10 x 10 inch size * Features 12 never-before-seen illustrations * Series has sold over half a million copies worldwide * Great for fans of Millie Marotta, Johanna Basford, and Kerby Rosanes; and for those who loved Secret Garden, Lost Ocean, Animal Kingdom Color Me Draw Me, and Tropical World
